SINGAPORE: There will be a complete ban on the sale and consumption of alcohol this coming weekend in the Race Course Road area where a riot broke out in Little India on Sunday night, Second Minister for Home Affairs S. Iswaran said.

The details of the ban, such as exactly what time it would apply and what geographical area it would cover, would be worked out by the police, Iswaran told reporters.

Though it was too early to say definitively what caused the riot – which was triggered after a fatal traffic accident – it was "plausible that alcohol consumption was a contributory factor", he added.

"And that is why we have taken this step in the first instance in order to stabilise the situation."

Transport Minister Lui Tuck Yew, who is the MP for the ward in Moulmein-Kallang GRC, said that he had wanted curbs on the sale of alcohol in the area for some time, after seeing the proliferation of liquor licences there.

"I know my residents will fully support this immediate measure," he said.

He and Iswaran were speaking to the media after a visit to the area on Monday evening, during which they spoke to shopkeepers.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said on Monday that a committee of inquiry (COI) would be set up to investigate the causes of the riot.

"The COI will look into the factors that led to the incident and how the incident was handled on the ground. It will also review the current measures to manage areas where foreign workers congregate, whether they are adequate and how they can be improved. MHA (Ministry of Home Affairs) will provide more details when ready," he said in a statement.

Lee said the riot was an isolated incident arising from the unlawful actions of an unruly mob reacting to a fatal traffic accident.

"The vast majority of foreign workers in Singapore are law-abiding workers. They contribute to our economy, working hard to earn a living and support their families back home. We must not allow this bad incident to tarnish our views of the foreign worker community here," he said.

He also offered his deepest condolences to the family of Sakthivel Kumaravelu, who was killed in the traffic accident that preceded the riot, and urged Singaporeans to remain calm and continue with their daily lives.

"Support our frontline officers in the Home Team, and share any leads you may have with the police. Let us stay united as one people as we deal with this unfortunate incident, and keep Singapore a safe and orderly country," he said. — The Straits Times / Asia News Network

SINGAPORE: On Sunday night, in Little India, a bus involved in an accident was smashed by a crowd of angry men; 16 police cars were damaged; one ambulance was completely burnt and two ambulances and other support vehicles were badly damaged.

It was as shocking as it was unacceptable. Whoever was responsible for the damage must be apprehended and punished according to the law. That much was clear but many questions are also crying to be answered.

Chief among them was what led to this outbreak of violence.

At the time of writing, the authorities have not provided a definitive answer and investigations are ongoing. But the media and online chatter have thrown up a host of speculation and charges that I would like to offer some observations to as a response.

One common refrain I hear is how such behaviour is un-Singaporean and these foreign workers have wilfully violated our norms. Others point to the possibility of underlying issues afflicting foreign workers.

For a start, I would urge that everyone be careful not to read too much into this incident until we get a fuller picture of what happened.

From the experience of TWC2 (migrant workers' group Transient Workers Count Too), we do not find foreign workers any more prone to violent, criminal or anti-social behaviour than Singaporeans.

Singapore crime statistics also bear this out. In fact, I sometimes marvel at how stoic the foreign workers are in the face of a bullying employer or a rogue agent or an unresponsive bureaucrat.

A Singaporean in that situation might have become far more confrontational. So I would appeal to Singaporeans not to jump to conclusions that foreign workers are an unruly lot.

TWC2 has always emphasised the importance of observing the law in Singapore, because that is the only way foreign workers – or local workers for that matter – can avoid trouble and be protected when they are in trouble.

We always tell migrant workers we work with to raise their grievances with the Ministry of Manpower while seeking the help of non-governmental organisations like us. And that advice has always been followed.

Was the rioting an expression of bottled-up grievances with their working life in Singapore?

My thinking is we should not play sociologist too readily. At the present moment, little is known about how exactly the rioting started. All we have heard is that the crowd was upset with the bus driver, and for some yet unclear reason started lobbing objects at the police and ambulance first responders.

But why were they directing ire at the first responders? What interaction took place between the gathered crowd and first responders that might have led to misunderstanding?

It is a well-known fact that riots are complex events, often triggered by some minor dispute.

The minor dispute could be one where an authority figure, for example a police officer, may be trying to do his job, but in doing so, was perceived by a crowd as being excessive, rude or overbearing.

It is also well known that when a community harbours an underlying grievance, the threshold for tipping into anti-social acts is lower.

The foreign worker communities have been at the receiving end of employment unfairness for a long time. Many do not receive correct salaries, or have no way – in the absence of payslips – to check whether they have been correctly paid. Some have not been paid for months; TWC2 sees a regular stream of such complaints.

Other workers have seen their friends injured at work, but denied proper medical treatment by their employers. Yet others have seen their friends repatriated suddenly without receiving full salaries or injury compensation.

But while we can understand there are festering grievances, it is not possible at this stage to say what part these feelings played in the explosion of random violence.

Nonetheless, it would still be good for the authorities to pay more attention to such grievances. Doing so would reduce whatever sense of resentment may exist, and thereby raise the threshold of the tipping point, to better prevent another incident from happening again.

And this is what I want to stress.

Singapore, its Government and its people, should not see this purely as a law and order problem. It should not be just a case of find the culprit, mete out the sentences and then the punished would not dare do it again. I am hoping, and it is more important, that we learn the right lessons from this episode.

Finally, I find the online xenophobic comments targeting foreign workers offensive. My TWC2 colleagues and I believe that generally foreign workers do not face xenophobia. They very rarely complained about xenophobic treatment. On the contrary, they find Singaporeans generally treat them reasonably.

If a majority of Singaporeans are reasonable fair-minded people, then I would urge every single one of us to rebuke, rebut or ignore the nasty xenophobes among us. This is the time to take a stand against ugly values that sow dissension. — The Straits Times / Asia News Network

SINGAPORE: The republic filed charges against 24 Indian nationals who allegedly took part in its first riot in over 40 years, as officials and activists warned against inciting racial hatred over the incident.

The men face up to seven years in jail plus caning for the hour-long fracas on Sunday night, triggered when an Indian construction worker was struck and killed by a private bus in a district known as Little India.

They were among an estimated 400 South Asian migrant workers involved in the rampage that left 39 police and civil defence staff injured and 25 vehicles - including 16 police cars - damaged or burnt.

The charge sheet said the men threw pieces of concrete and were "members of an unlawful assembly whose common object was to overawe, by a show of criminal force, police officers in the exercise of their lawful power to maintain law and order at the scene."

The suspects, aged between 22 and 40, looked sombre as the charges were read in Tamil by an interpreter.

They were remanded at a police complex for one week for further investigations.

Police earlier said the suspects could be charged with a more serious offence punishable by up to 10 years in jail, but they faced a lesser charge yesterday. Singapore's foreign ministry said it was working closely with the Indian High Commissioner "to facilitate consular access and support for their nationals, including legal representation."

Two Bangladeshis, another Indian national and a Malaysian also arrested after the riot were released as investigations showed they were not involved.

The 55-year-old Singaporean bus driver who knocked down and killed Indian construction worker Sakthivel Kumaravelu, 33, has been released on bail after being charged with causing death by a negligent act.

The wealthy but tiny Southeast Asian nation of 5.4 million depends heavily on guest workers, with labourers from South Asia dominating sectors like construction.

Sunday's riot was the second incident involving a large group of foreign workers in the past year.

In November 2012, 171 Chinese bus drivers stopped work to demand better wages and living conditions - the first industrial strike in Singapore since 1986.

Five of the drivers served jail terms after it was declared an illegal strike, while 29 others were deported without trial.

Officials have called for calm after the Little India riot, which triggered a wave of foreigner-bashing in social media.

On the Facebook page of Yahoo! Singapore, reader Tan Beng Ming wrote: "Jail them, cane them and send them packing! For good measure, send their compatriots back too!"

"Only foreigners will start a riot, it is their norm," wrote another reader, Koh Koh. — AFP